CHAPTER 10Selling Your Message without Saying a Word
I WAS TOLD THAT PAUL, the senior manager I had been asked to coach, was a poor communicator. After watching him at a leadership conference, I was in total agreement. It wasn’t what Paul said. His words were carefully chosen and well rehearsed. It was his nonverbal language. Mechanical in all his gestures, Paul’s body was screaming: “I’m uncomfortable and unconvinced about everything I’m telling you!”
Then there was the matter of timing. If a person’s gestures are produced before or as the words come out, he appears open and candid. If he speaks first and then gestures, however, as Paul did, it’s perceived as a contrived movement. And at that point, the validity of whatever is said comes under ...
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